Disgust sensitivity relates to moral foundations independent of political ideology.

Abstract

for data sharing. We thank Geoffrey Goodwin for helpful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.Word count: 2,580 (excluding abstract, tables, and references) Disgust sensitivity and moral judgments 2 Disgust sensitivity and moral judgments 3 AbstractMoral judgments seem related to the emotion disgust. Evolutionary considerations might illuminate the psychological processes underlying this relation. Several studies have noted that individuals who are more disgust sensitive condemn moral violations more strongly.However, this association could result from both disgust sensitivity and moral judgment being correlated with political ideology. To clarify the relationship between disgust sensitivity and moral judgment, we analyzed data from multiple published and unpublished datasets that included the Three-Domain Disgust scale, the Moral Foundations Questionnaire, and a measure of ideology (total N = 2,478). Results showed that associations between disgust sensitivity and moral judgment remained when controlling for ideology. Each of the three types of disgust sensitivity uniquely predicted at least one of the five moral foundations. Moral disgust predicted scores for all moral foundations (largest effect forFairness/reciprocity). Sexual disgust predicted scores for all moral foundations except Fairness/reciprocity (largest effect for Purity/sanctity). Pathogen disgust had small predictive effects for Ingroup/loyalty, Authority/respect, and Purity/sanctity. All effects were positive (i.e., higher levels of disgust sensitivity were associated with greater moral foundation endorsement). These findings suggest specific relations between disgust sensitivity and moral judgment that are not explained by ideology, shedding further light on the functions of disgust and morality.

Sex differences in moral judgements across 67 countries

“…Specifically, we [46]. We conducted a secondary analysis on data from 11 969 participants in 19 countries: Australia [47] (n = 1115), Belgium [48] (n = 493), China [49] (n = 393), France [50] (n = 213), Hungary [51] (n = 403), Iran [52] (n = 501), Japan [53] (n = 534), South Korea [54] (n = 478), Latvia [55] (n = 264), Mongolia [56] (n = 444), the Netherlands [48] (n = 285), Poland [57] (n = 1702), Russia [56] (n = 468), Serbia [58] (n = 240), Spain [59] (n = 240), Sweden [60,61] (n = 2068), Turkey [62] (n = 1465), UK [63] (n = 273), and USA (Amazon Mechanical Turk) (n = 390). The median sample size was 444.…”

Capturing Fluctuations in Pathogen Avoidance: the Situational Pathogen Avoidance Scale

“…Pathogen avoidance also has implications for morality. People motivated by pathogen avoidance tend to espouse moral world views that help bind the ingroup together to protect the group from internal instability, as well as outgroups who carry novel pathogens to which one's own group has not developed immunity or who may not follow group norms (Murray et al 2017;Park and Isherwood 2011;van Leeuwen et al 2017). Motivation to avoid pathogens also seems to affect juror decision-making (Brown et al 2017).…”

Individual Differences in Moral Disgust Do Not Predict Utilitarian Judgments, Sexual and Pathogen Disgust Do

“…In addition, sexual disgust has been associated with conservative political attitudes 14 . In some studies, disgust sensitivity is associated with norm adherence 2 ; while in others, it is associated with concerns for ritualistic purity, albeit this research is still relatively scarce 15 .…”